Forrester Research published its latest "Wave" research report yesterday and even though there are hundreds of media buying companies using the DSP model across ad exchanges and other supply sources, Forrester's criteria whittled the list down to seven, display-focused DSP companies from among "3 dozen" initially considered: AppNexus, DataXu, Invite Media, LucidMedia Networks, MediaMath, Turn, and X Plus One. Joanna O'Connell of Forrester writes, "We found that MediaMath, Turn, and DataXu led the pack because of the breadth of their media access, the depth and acumen of
their audience management capabilities, and their expertise in algorithmic optimization." Nevertheless, the entire group of seven came out looking good in that they were rated either a "strong performer" (Lucid) or a "Leader" (everyone else). You can go buy the report on Forrester's site for $2495, or DataXu has made the report available for the cost of some PII: Get it here. Update: Or, MediaMath has it for no PII here. For an overview, Ad Age's Jason Del Rey takes a look at the report with input from DSP-ers here. The next step to a report like this could be reviewing DSP companies that provide cross-channel media buying services, and/or include the agency trading desks about which Forrester's O'Connell has recently written, or review other channels such as video or mobile using the DSP model.

Acquiring Social Retargeting

Social ad network RadiumOne is busy adding to its toolkit as the company announced the acquisition of apps developer Focus Labs which makes Clixtr. TechCrunch's Leena Rao says of the app that it "aims to turn smartphones into 'social cameras'. The basic idea behind the service is that when you're at an event, be it a birthday party at your home or at a massive rock concert, photos from multiple people attending could be turned into one single, centralized photo album." More data for more targeting at RadiumOne. Read about it on TechCrunch. This news comes on the heels of the launch of social sharing platform Po.st by RadiumOne a couple of weeks ago.

New Year IPO

Rocket Fuel has put a stake in the ground for its ad network. Chief Executive Officer George John tells Bloomberg's Brian Womack that his company will have more than $40 million in revenue this year, up from about $16 million in 2010. Moreover: "Before a potential public offering, the Redwood City, California-based company plans to raise capital in the first quarter to fund growth and acquisitions." Read it.

Exchanging Mobile Ads Privately

Nexage says its offering a private exchange for mobile according to a release. Though it doesn't name specific publishers taking advantage of the new product, the company says of its exchange, "bid volumes on RTB are growing at more than 71% per month and revenues are growing at more than 70% per month." Read more.

Ad Ops Goes Strategic

Ad Ops Insider's Ben Kneen looks at the year in ad operations on his blog and sees the MediaBank-Donovan Data Systems merger as a potential seminal moment: "In my mind, the success of MediaOcean would move the Ad Ops department in most companies to a much more strategic place in the organization, removing the need for a brute force army of traffickers, and instead creating the opportunity for more technical strategists." Read it.

Marketing The API

Here that bell ringing? Another API has received its wings in the ecosystem as interoperability and transparency are required by mashups of marketing systems. Along those lines, ChoiceStream is massaging the landing page and says it is launching APIs to give clients more flexibiity when they optimize their digital marketing campaigns with personalized recommendations. Read the release.

Patent The Algo

Ad tech company Pretarget, led by former Cadreon exec Keith Pieper, says it has been awarded a patent by the US Patent Office for and algorithm. Known as "Relevancy-based Domain Classification", the algo "increases relevancy in online, mobile and search advertising by classifying and understanding user intent." Ad tech lawyers are scurrying everywhere. Read more.

Ad Tech Begets Media

Say Media continues to add to its growing, media company portfolio. The company announced the acquisition of tech blog ReadWriteWeb for a rumored $5 million yesterday. As you may recall, Say Media is the combined parts of video ad tech company Video Egg and blogging platform Six Apart. Online destinations for B2B data, audience and influencers remains a compelling combo for media acquirers. Read it.